First Ever Sneak Peek At The Animated Adaptation Of ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ With Mark Hamill And Kevin Conroy

It is easily one of the most telling, dynamic, and disturbing stories in all of comic book history, and now, Batman: The Killing Joke has been turned into an animated film. The graphic novel is one that truly gets into the soul of everyone that reads it. The first sneak peek of the film has been released now, and it’s made all that much better with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their voice roles of Batman and The Joker, respectively.

It really looks as if the summer release is going to be R-rated, and that means it will stay true to its incredibly violent and dark source material. Back in mid-March, Hamill hopped on Twitter and revealed the first scene to be released and it was awesome.

THE “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy…Just one bad day.” pic.twitter.com/bqzBQPIhOw

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) March 14, 2016

Since then, fans have been waiting for more from Bruce Timm’s movie even though it isn’t set to premiere until Comic-Con this summer. Well, now they’ve finally gotten more in an extended sneak peek that includes new scenes and the filmmakers talking about everything, as reported by Cosmic Book News.

It’s really hard to get the baby dominatrix scene with Commissioner Gordon out of your head whether it is still frames in the graphic novel or active on screen.

DC Entertainment released the featurette for Batman: The Killing Joke to give fans a deeper look at how the story is coming to life. It’s also to give those new to the tale, something to fall back on if they haven’t yet read it.

Executive producer Bruce Timm is joined in the sneak peek by director Sam Liu and Mike Carlin who is DC’s creative director of animation. They talk about how it was to take “The Killing Joke” off of the pages of the graphic novel and make it animated, but without losing any of the feeling and intensity in the story.

There is also a bit of a backstory which details the history of “The Killing Joke” and looks further at the tumultuous relationship between Batman and The Joker. They’re not just enemies, but as any fan knows, they almost need one another to continue on in life.

The small snippets of scenes from the film do a great job of bringing fantastic nostalgia back to fans of the animated version of Batman. Hearing Hamill as Joker and Kevin Conroy as the Caped Crusader, it’s almost like watching a very dark version of Batman: The Animated Series.

Actually, that’s pretty much exactly what it is.

Gizmodo does point out that some changes are being made such as the new prologue to the story and Barbara Gordon is actually involved more in the story. So far though, it appears as if DC is doing a great job at bringing one of the most iconic comic stories into a new light.

On Mark Hamill’s Facebook page, he introduced the clip on Sunday morning in true Joker fashion by saying, “Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes…but can we live without them?”

Hamill and Conroy will be joined by Ray Wise who is going to voice Commissioner Gordon and Tara Strong who will voice Barbara Gordon/Batgirl.

Batman: The Killing Joke is very hard to get out of your mind if you’ve ever read the graphic novel. Now, with the animated version arriving this summer, the story is coming to life. Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as The Joker only make it more real and frightening.

[Image via DC Entertainment]